


blood and fire

by realmsoffreedom



Category: Glee
Genre: Blangst, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Future Fic, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:02:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29123115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/realmsoffreedom/pseuds/realmsoffreedom
Summary: He doesn’t always know what to say. Sometimes, he tries to string together what he thinks are the right words, theit’ll get better soons and theyou aren’t your depressions, but he knows that they rarely help. Sometimes all he can do is sit here and hold Blaine, provide a warm body, a physical manifestation of all of thoseyou’re not alones. If it means staying in bed all weekend, Kurt’s happy to do it. Just as long as it makes Blaine feel likesomeoneis in his corner, even if he himself isn’t.
Relationships: Blaine Anderson/Kurt Hummel
Comments: 21
Kudos: 69





	blood and fire

**Author's Note:**

> hi everyone! 
> 
> this feels surreal. i've been wanting to write glee fic since i started watching it in quarantine, and i've been working on this piece for what feels like forever. it got.......way longer than i originally imagined it would be (sorry in advance!), but i loved it too much to cut any of it out.
> 
> i took a couple of liberties w canon. first off, i love kurt as a fashion design student too much to let go of it, but i'm keeping him at nyada bc having him go to parsons or FIT would've involved a ton of little changes in the timeline i didn't want to deal with so suspend your disbelief there lmfao let's pretend nyada has a fashion program. 
> 
> i should also mention that i haven't finished the show yet so i don't know what blaine ends up studying at NYU, but in my head, he's destined to be a teacher. steinhardt is one of the best programs for education too so....i love this for him. but with that said, because i haven't finished yet (i'm halfway through season 4 rn), some of the little details may not be quite right. i know klaine get married (after breaking up again and completely unexpectedly lmfao), i know blaine is diagnosed with depression, but i don't know much else. so pls don't be mad if i get something wrong!
> 
> finally, this fic does deal with depression. there's also mentions of anxiety and panic attacks, and kurt does reference struggling with eating (i wouldn't call it disordered eating, just anxiety making him sick), as a warning! none of this is explicit, but i thought i'd let you know, just in case.
> 
> i hope you guys enjoy! please leave me a comment letting me know what you thought! :) you can find me on tumblr at theghostofashton, if you would rather talk there!

Kurt wakes to a tuft of hair in his mouth, strands tickling his nose.

He grunts and squirms backward, blinking against beams of sunlight flooding into their bedroom, and reaches blindly for the edge of the covers to yank over his face. Blaine snuffles a little, as Kurt pulls his arm from underneath his body, but doesn’t stir.

He’s always been a heavy sleeper. Kurt gets woken up by the slightest movement, a light being turned off or on, heavy footsteps – part of why he loved having his bedroom in the basement, at home, secluded from all of that – but Blaine is content to sleep through a tornado, if it hits. He’s warm and soft and completely at peace, underneath the blankets.

Kurt wriggles forward, reaching clumsily to push Blaine’s hair away from his neck so he can bury back in, cringing as his hand gets caught on a knotted clump. He bites his lip and does his best to gingerly unwind his fingers from the strands. Heavy sleeper he may be, but most people would probably wake up if they felt someone pulling at their hair. 

It’s weird; he doesn’t remember Blaine’s hair ever being this tangled. Come to think of it, Blaine has been wearing a lot of beanies lately, but Kurt’s chalked that up to the November chill. New York is so much colder this time of year, than what they both were used to in Ohio. Kurt’s been here for close to two years, and he still isn’t accustomed to it.

But one night of sleep doesn’t necessarily account for how much of a mess Blaine’s hair is. Kurt, a little more awake now, is beginning to see the sheer extent of the knots. His hair is longer now; there’s more of it to get twisted, but Blaine’s hair care routine has always been robust. It used to be too short to need to worry about it, but at this length, and curly, it tangles easily. 

Kurt presses a kiss against the back of Blaine’s neck and snakes his arm back underneath his husband’s body, pulling Blaine back into his arms. Blaine lets out a little sigh as Kurt slots him against his chest and holds on tight. 

It’s been a rough couple of months.

Rougher than they’ve had in a while, if he’s really honest with himself. He’s been so busy with Vogue.com and the end of midterms, and trying to reconfigure his schedule to allocate ample time for his capstone project while still allowing enough days off that he and Blaine can go back to Ohio for Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. 

It’s an ambitious ask, Kurt knows. He usually has no choice but to sacrifice the trip home for Thanksgiving, so he’s not tearing his hair out for the first half of December. They only get four days off, counting the weekend, and it’s advised that students spend those four days getting ahead on final projects and preparing for the impending doom of all their showcases and exams – _because who needs to see their family and take some time to recharge, right? Mental health be damned_ – but Kurt had his mind set on booking the flights to spend at least three of those four days back in his childhood home, waking up to the sound of his dad’s unadulterated belly laughter and trying out new recipes with Carole while Blaine and Burt try to communicate with – yell at – the football players through their TV screen. 

Midterm critiques this time around were no joke. He shudders just thinking about it, remembering the late nights pouring over vague professor feedback and tweaking and retweaking his designs so many times that the clothes had begun to barely resemble anything wearable. All of the nights spent lying awake as his brain screamed at him, _too safe, not exciting, not difficult enough, you’re gonna fail_ , throwing up everything he tried to put into his body – Kurt’s sure he’s never seen Blaine that worried in his life – having panic attack after panic attack until all he could do was cling on to Blaine and hide his face and relish in the one place he felt safe. He hadn’t reached that bad a headspace since high school, and it felt so bad, so destructive, like it had erased all the progress he’d thought he made. 

That was a little over a month ago, and it’s been smooth sailing ever since. The critique came and went without a hitch – his designs were complimented for being the most well-thought out and his creativity was applauded, to his utter shock. The dust feels like it’s finally starting to settle – at least, he isn’t waking up to panic attacks after dreams of failing out of NYADA anymore – and everything seems to be falling into place. 

Well, it would be. Except Kurt spends every free moment, instead of worrying about his midterm critique, now worrying about his husband. 

Blaine’s been busy this semester, too. It’s only his sophomore year – NYADA credits didn’t transfer to NYU, unfortunately – and he’s been cast as one of the male leads in a play Tisch is putting on. That kind of role is almost unheard of, for a sophomore, especially one not in the Drama department, but of course, Blaine’s that good. Kurt’s known that from the beginning, never needed any kind of actualization to prove to him how truly gifted his husband is. The years of work Blaine’s put in are paying off in a major way. Kurt sometimes has to consciously _stop_ thinking about how proud he is, because he always ends up teary. 

Blaine decided not to pursue performance or theater either. He loves singing and acting – he’s minoring in performance studies at Tisch – but teaching, _connecting_ , with kids, has always been where he finds the most joy. Kurt remembers when he told him about the music education major at NYU, the light in his eyes as he began to ramble about the classes he would get to take and the things he’d get to study, music from all around the world, its impact on culture, the psychological explanation for how it truly does have the power to save people… _singing and dancing got me through the darkest days of my life, Kurt. And now I get to use it to teach kids and help them_. 

The requirements for Steinhardt are way different than anything Kurt’s had to do. It’s not an arts school. There are certain math and science classes Blaine’s required to take. Neither of them were fazed by it; Blaine’s always shone in school, one of those annoying people that was good at math and science, but also loved learning history and analyzing literature. In theory, those requirements shouldn’t have been a problem. Blaine was even excited about getting to step out of the music bubble and learn something new.

In practice, Blaine’s neuroscience professor is a walking nightmare and he’s driving himself up a wall trying to figure out how to pass her class. The first exam was _impossible_ , he’d ranted, eyes rimmed with red and cheeks flushed. _I’ve never felt that stupid in my fucking life, Kurt_. 

He spent a good couple of weeks glued to his textbook afterward, pouring over PowerPoint slides and rewriting his notes into the early hours of the morning. For a while, it seemed like he was handling things, keeping his head above water. Rehearsals and classes and homework, barely squeezing in time for them to have a date night every week. They’ve both just been so busy. 

Kurt used to count down the minutes until it was time for bed, until he could slip out of his work headspace and underneath the covers. Count down the seconds until he could curl around Blaine and press his face into the nape of his husband’s neck, breathing in and squeezing tight until the shakiness had left his hands and he felt calm enough to sleep. Blaine is like a furnace when he’s asleep, languid softness and warmth that wraps around Kurt like a blanket. It’s the safest he ever feels anymore. The most relaxed, the closest to peace he’s been able to get. 

He loves what he gets to study, and he loves Vogue, but everything’s felt like too much, lately. It feels like he has bugs under his skin, stinging flesh and forcing him to be on-edge at all hours of the day. He’s always alert, always anxious, always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Good news doesn’t even feel like good news anymore. He knows he needs a break, but he doesn’t have time to take one. The few hours of solace he gets each night, centering himself against the sound of Blaine’s heart, need to be enough. 

And they have been. He’s forced himself to make them enough, and sure, it isn’t the healthiest way of going about things – he’s definitely going to get an earful from his therapist during their next session – but it works. He’s good at it. _Compartmentalizing_ , she had told him it was called once. His feelings and his exhaustion would be there once his critique had finished. There was no need to let them destroy him when his fate at NYADA was hanging in the balance. 

And sometimes Kurt wishes Blaine was like that too. Could package up his feelings and put them away for later, instead of stepping into the tidal wave and letting it wipe him out. He wishes Blaine could see the wave coming and arm himself, try to meet the crest and surf over it before it overcame him.

He feels awful for even considering it, awful for even wishing his terrible coping mechanisms on his husband, _who do you think you are? Blaine doesn’t deserve to hurt like you do. Just because suffering works for you doesn’t mean he deserves to suffer too_ , because he knows that Blaine used to be so good at it too. Back when they first met, when his perception of Blaine was neatly combed hair and pristine white button-ups, everything that rendered him anything below perfect tucked carefully underneath the confines of that Dalton blazer. 

They say marriage is a journey, and Kurt feels like he finally understands what they mean by that. He learns a little more about Blaine every day, sometimes the little things, like the deft movements of his hands as he applies product to his hair, and sometimes the bigger ones, like how he ran to Dalton and spent the next couple years curating a personality for himself that wasn’t teeming with fear and insecurity and doubt. So much of what Kurt met back all those years ago, the hand that took his and tugged him down the hallways of Dalton, composed and charismatic and charming, was an act. A façade, to fake the confidence Blaine had truly never really developed. He’s always been a great actor. 

They’ve been together for well over five years, married for almost two, and Kurt finally feels like he can spot the shifts in Blaine’s behavior, the signs of an oncoming tsunami-wave, before even he does. 

Blaine’s been talking about getting a haircut for a while. Kurt remembers him mentioning it soon after the school year had started, Blaine running a hand through his messy curls one night before bed and remarking that he needed to book an appointment with Jonathan. 

Kurt remembers the first time he got to see Blaine’s hair for real, styled, with product, but devoid of almost all the hair gel he used to slick it back with. Blaine had gone for a haircut, a couple weeks after they’d gotten back to New York, and returned a brand new person. His curls, after so many years of being gelled down to his head, were finally free, soft and touchable, styled with products meant to define and hold them in place. _Yes_ , Blaine had giggled, as Kurt was running his hands through the strands, pressing kisses all over his face, _there’s still gel in it, but way less than I put in_.

Jonathan had taught him how to style it properly, with the appropriate amount of gel, and threatened to refuse to sell him another bottle of the stuff if he finished the first too quickly. _Dime-sized_ , Blaine had mumbled, sheepish and pink-cheeked, _he said a whole bottle is supposed to last for like, six months, that way_. 

His bottle of gel has been left untouched for _weeks_ , Kurt is beginning to realize, now that he’s really thinking about it. Whenever Blaine leaves the apartment, it’s with his curls shoved into a beanie, and when he’s home, his hair is doing what it wants, frizzy, messy, and tangled. 

It breaks his heart. He’s been aching for the past week, watching Blaine trudge through the apartment, a far-off look in his eyes. Blaine goes to class – sometimes, when he can manage it – comes back, and falls into bed immediately after, only able to scrounge up the energy to focus for that hour and a half. Rachel’s taken to texting Kurt, trying to schedule brunch with Blaine, because he hasn’t responded to any of her messages. 

They went out for lunch with Elliot last weekend, and he’d invited them to a bar that night. Kurt was fully prepared to say yes, until he’d caught a glimpse of Blaine’s face. The change was immediate; the way Blaine’s posture had stiffened and his gaze dropped down to the table, eyes beginning to gloss over. He’d declined in a small voice, mumbling something about homework and learning lines and wanting to start work on an audition piece. 

And that’s when Kurt knew.

Blaine always does this. Lines his schedule – or tells people that his schedule is full – of all of these huge things, tries to seem busy, and then hates himself a little extra that night, when he’s too exhausted to start on any of it. Puts on the front of someone who has everything together and can handle it all – remnants from being raised by a father who doesn’t believe mental illness is real and can have life-altering consequences, from a house where he had to _get over it_ and _push through_ and _stop complaining, you’re just lazy and don’t want to do the work_ – while his mind works overtime constructing his inaction as more reasons to hate himself. 

Dredging up the energy to come out to lunch with Kurt and Elliot was enough to wear Blaine out. None of the things he listed were going to get done, and he was going to urge Kurt to go out with Elliot that night anyway, so he could spend the time curled up in bed, hating himself.

Kurt wasn’t going to let that happen.

He made an excuse of his own and took Blaine home, ordered piles of Thai takeout for dinner, and forced them to spend the night on the couch, eating drunken noodles straight from the container, his husband curled up against his chest. Blaine was still quiet, still lost in his head, but he fell asleep in Kurt’s arms mid-movie, instead of retreating back to their room to wallow in his own despair. 

Blaine’s depression didn’t come as too much of a shock, when he first told Kurt about it. A lot of things made more sense, in retrospect. And, while Kurt couldn’t share in the exact pain, he battled the same beast, felt the same apathy and numbness for far too long not to understand. It wasn’t perfect and he didn’t get all of it – _two people don’t experience depression in the same ways_ , his therapist had told him, _and they definitely don’t cope with it the same_ – but being able to put a name to the demon that invaded his husband’s personal space and clung to him like a limpet for weeks on end made so much of the past few years finally make sense. 

And god, Kurt wishes he could do more. This depressive episode has lasted a few weeks, and shows no signs of abating yet. Blaine’s been to see his therapist, who gave him the name of a psychiatrist and suggested looking into medication, but he’s not completely on board with it yet and Kurt refuses to rush him. He’s not a danger to himself, at least not now. Kurt refuses to take this decision away from him. He’ll make it when he feels well enough. 

And he will feel well. They just have to let this run its course. 

But all of this is so much easier said than done, and none of it makes Kurt’s heart hurt any less.

“Love you so much,” he whispers against Blaine’s skin, knows he won’t hear it but needs to vocalize the words. _You’re important to me and I love you. I love you_.

He knows he won’t get back to sleep at this point, so Kurt slips from the covers, goes to quickly brush his teeth and make a cup of coffee, then grabs his sketchbook off the kitchen table and brings it back to bed with him. 

He gets under the blankets again, sheets still warmed with his body heat, and leans over to press a kiss against Blaine’s hair. 

Blaine’s felt like the beat in his chest since he was sixteen years old. Some days, Kurt is shocked by how fervent the love still feels. This is the place, the _person_ that makes him feel like it is safe to breathe, on days when everything seems to be spinning out of control. 

And watching him hurt like this, not being able to do anything to stop it, is painful in a way Kurt can’t put to words. 

He wishes there was something he could do. 

…

Blaine wakes a couple of hours later, as the clock steadily climbs to 11am. 

He groans and shifts, one arm snaking out of the blankets and feeling for his phone on their nightstand. 

“Morning, honey.” Kurt’s pencil stills. He pauses mid-sketch to lean over and kiss Blaine’s cheek. “Sleep well?” 

“Not really,” Blaine says half-heartedly. He finally grabs his phone and presses a button to light up the screen. “Oh. I slept really late.” 

“That’s okay,” Kurt tries to soothe. “It’s Saturday, we don’t have anywhere to go or anything planned.” He can see the wheels turning in Blaine’s head, grabbing traction off the self-loathing that’s already begun to play on loop. 

“Don’t.” 

“Don’t what?”

“Try to make me feel better about this,” Blaine mutters. He says the next words under his breath, but Kurt catches the “fucking lazy” at the end. 

If Kurt’s heart wasn’t breaking before, it definitely is now, at the absolutely stricken look on Blaine’s face. His jaw is stiff and his eyes are starting to become shiny. Kurt watches the muscles work in his neck as he swallows, hard and painful, and blinks rapidly to rid the tears from his eyes. 

“Don’t say that.” He closes his sketchbook and pushes it off to the side. Scooting over, he reaches for his husband and breathes a large sigh of relief when Blaine doesn’t push him away. Blaine turns his face into the crook of Kurt’s neck, and Kurt drops a kiss on his head, rubbing at his side with his other arm. “It’s been a long week. You needed the rest.”

“From what? The classes I didn’t go to? The rehearsals I completely screwed up in?”

“Blaine…”

“You don’t havta make excuses, Kurt.” All the bitterness has seeped out from his voice, and now he just sounds tired. “S’not your fault m’a lazy piece of shit.”

Spoken like the words came from Robert Anderson himself. Kurt blows out a long breath and forces himself to bite back a retort. He doesn’t want to start an argument, but he hates when Blaine talks about himself like this, so scathing and bitter. Violent, almost. Blaine isn’t a violent person by any stretch of the imagination. The only time he speaks like this is when the words are turned toward himself. It makes Kurt’s blood boil to hear sometimes. 

Sometimes he finds himself so protective over Blaine that he’s _angry_ at Blaine, angry at Blaine’s brain for doing this to him. Kurt doesn’t know how else to describe the rage that overtakes him in moments like these, the red spots that seep into his vision, like the world was just set on fire and all he has is gasoline. He thinks about how this is something Blaine is going to have to deal with forever, and wants to start snapping, screaming, _he is sunshine and you are ruining that. You’re hurting him, don’t you see that? You are giving him dark clouds that won’t go away and he feels so_ bad _about himself and there is_ nothing _that I can do to change his mind_ -

Kurt breathes. He closes his eyes, draws in a long breath, and exhales noisily through his mouth. _This won’t help. You have to stay calm_. 

“Remember a couple months ago?” He settles on, finally. “We were supposed to go see Book of Mormon with Rachel and Jesse? And we ended up having to cancel on them because I had a really bad panic attack that afternoon?”

“Kurt-”

“I hated myself for that, Blaine,” he says. “I’d been looking forward to that show for months, and nothing was even really _wrong_ , that week. It was just hard. Everything felt impossible. I kept telling myself I was okay, that I was making a big deal out of nothing, that my stupid brain wasn’t gonna get in the way of us having a good night, but nothing worked.”

Even thinking back on it makes him sad. He still wishes they could’ve gone to that show. He wishes he could’ve worked harder to push past the anxiety. He’s spent his entire life doing that, pushing through, pushing past, moving forward, not allowing himself to dwell too long on things that would’ve sent him spiraling. He got through high school doing that, forcing himself to survive each day and move on to the next without much thought to how the cycle was affecting him. 

_This won’t matter in ten years when I’m their boss._

_One day they’ll work for me._

_Someday I’ll leave this cow town and be rid of them for good._

_Compartmentalizing_. Everything had been packed away into a little box and shoved into the back corner of his mind to deal with later. He remembers feeling so frustrated that this couldn’t have joined them. He’d managed to do it in far more dire situations than this one, and somehow one bad anxiety week was going to ruin something he’d been looking forward to months. It still doesn’t feel fair. 

“Remember what you said to me that night?”

Blaine shrugs.

“You said you didn’t want us to do something you knew would be too much for me. And I was crying, and screaming at you, because I knew you were right but I _hated_ being told I couldn’t handle something.” Kurt uses the arm wrapped around Blaine’s waist to reach for his hand and squeeze, intertwining their fingers. “I hated feeling that weak. But you were right, Blaine. Do you remember? In bed that night, the show was probably picking up after intermission, and I was being a whiny little bitch and snapping at you about how I could’ve pushed through, and you kept reminding me that-”

“Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should,” Blaine supplies quietly. 

“Yeah, exactly.” Kurt brings their joined hands up, lips brushing against Blaine’s wedding ring. “You could’ve gotten up earlier, sure. But your body needed the sleep, and again, we have _nothing to do today_. It’s Saturday. You’re not bad, or lazy, or worthless, for sleeping in on a Saturday. So please, honey, stop beating yourself up for it.”

Blaine is quiet for a few moments, processing. Kurt gives his hand another squeeze.

“I-” He flails a bit, searching for the words. “Love you,” Blaine mumbles, finally, head flopping back into the crook of his neck. The tension hasn’t fully left his shoulders, but Kurt can feel him starting to soften. 

“I love you, too.”

Kurt reaches to cup Blaine’s cheek, and tilts his head. “Wait,” Blaine says. He wriggles away from Kurt to turn and pull something from the drawer of their nightstand. 

Kurt’s eyes burn as he watches Blaine open the box of Altoids and pop one into his mouth. He’s always hated morning breath. There are lot of things he can ignore, compromise over, a lot of Blaine’s habits that he’s had to accustom himself to in order to keep from starting a fight every time they happen – clothes on the floor, dishes sitting in the sink and drying up, shoes on the carpets – but morning breath grosses him out on a level he can’t get past. Blaine never forgets that. 

Finally, Blaine lifts his head and connects their lips. Kurt feels like crying. There’s a lump in his throat and his eyes are still burning as they part and he knocks his forehead against his husband’s. His _husband’s_. Two years in, and he’s still constantly in awe that this is real. This is his life. This is how he gets to spend his life, for as long as he lives. Kurt would take the worst all again with the knowledge that he got to end up right here. 

Blaine moves to hook his chin on Kurt’s shoulder, snaking an arm around his waist, “what’re you working on?”

“Stuff for my final portfolio,” Kurt says, a little sheepish. “It’s early, I know, but… I don’t want last month to happen again during finals. I figured if I can decide what I’m doing for it in the next couple weeks, try things out and make the final choice before we go home for Thanksgiving, I’ll know what I’m doing and can just do it, once we get back. And I can probably work on things when we’re home too-” _That is, if I don’t freak out and decide it all sucks and I need to start over in a month_.

“We’re going home for a break, Kurt.”

“I know, but…”

“You work too hard, honey,” Blaine murmurs, lips brushing right underneath Kurt’s ear. “M’cutting you off for those four days. No school.”

“Oh?” Kurt laughs. “Will that be enforced?”

“Yep.” Blaine grunts and rolls on top of him, straddling his waist. “Gonna kidnap your sketchbook and everything.” He presses kisses to both Kurt’s cheeks and then begins to move down his jaw, to his neck.

“Blaine!” Kurt tries to protest, but can’t keep the smile out of his voice. Blaine tugs at the hem of his shirt, and raises an eyebrow. Kurt nods, almost frantic, and lifts his arms to help Blaine pull the t-shirt over his head. He closes his eyes as Blaine’s lips travel down his skin, breathless and warm. 

…

Kurt tilts his head down to drop a kiss against Blaine’s hair. “God…we haven’t made out like that in so long, B. I forgot how good it was.” 

He thinks of those days so fondly, appreciates how naïve and in love they both were, always finds himself smiling at the thought. Freshly together and still exploring every new part of each other they could reach, marking up one another’s bodies as if the kisses were tattoos. The first time they slept together, waking up in Blaine’s arms and knowing he had found the safest place he’d ever be for the rest of his life, at only seventeen years old. Safe and connected and loved more than his childhood self had ever dreamed possible. 

Neither of them had any idea what was coming, couldn’t see the rush of the worst crests until they had slammed into them and wiped them both out. And rebuilding, searching for all their broken pieces, complete with new, sharp, jagged edges, felt like a battle they were destined to lose. They were trudging through something so close to disintegrating to ash. Every new step felt far too precarious for him to want to go any further, to want to risk the little they had left and lose everything.

He’s survived a lot, but Kurt knows that losing Blaine will not be one of those things. 

“Remember that time Wes caught us, in the common room? We lost track of time before Warblers practice and he got hit in the face with my blazer because you couldn’t see where you threw it?” Kurt’s cheeks warm at the memory. Getting so caught up in the moment, Blaine peeling his blazer off his shoulders and grabbing his waist, both of them forgetting Wes’ policy of arriving early to every practice. In retrospect, he’s glad they were forced to stop there. Their first time was a dream come true. He knows he would’ve regretted doing anything in the heat of the moment.

Blaine is quiet, head pillowed on his chest. Kurt nudges at him. “Honey? You still with me?”

A few more moments of silence pass, and then, “I’m sorry, Kurt.”

“For what?”

“I know you wanted to-” Blaine lifts his head a few inches and jerks it in the direction of Kurt’s discarded shirt. “And I just can’t right now, I’m sorry, I know we haven’t in a while, but I just- I don’t know what’s wrong with me-”

“Whoa, hey, no,” Kurt interrupts gently. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. You never have to-” He stops when Blaine meets his eyes, feels his heart clench at the tears shining and welling, already breaking through the barrier and landing on Blaine’s lashes. 

He sighs. “Come here, sweetheart.”

Blaine raises his upper body long enough to flop down against Kurt’s shoulder, trembling. Kurt feels the tears, warm and slimy on his naked shoulder, and holds back a wince, keeping one arm around Blaine’s waist and using the other to rub his back. 

He doesn’t always know what to say. Sometimes, he tries to string together what he thinks are the right words, the _it’ll get better soon_ s and the _you aren’t your depression_ s, but he knows that they rarely help. They feel empty, in a way he never wants words directed at his _husband_ to feel. Trite and obligatory and _stupid_ in a way that makes him feel like it’d be better not to say anything at all. Sometimes all he can do is sit here and hold Blaine, provide a warm body, a physical manifestation of all of those _you’re not alone_ s. If it means staying in bed all weekend, Kurt’s happy to do it. Just as long as it makes Blaine feel like _someone_ is in his corner, even if he himself isn’t. 

“I’m okay now.” Blaine’s voice is so soft. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to-”

“Shh.” Kurt presses a kiss to the side of his mouth. “Come on. I wanna make you breakfast.”

“It’s almost noon.”

Kurt raises an eyebrow. “Have you ever cared _when_ we eat blueberry pancakes?” 

“Definitely not.”

Kurt smiles. He slides out from underneath Blaine and reaches to grab his shirt as he stands. Extending a hand to Blaine, he tugs him close and squeezes Blaine’s fingers as they make their way into the kitchen.

…

“Don’t you have stuff you need to do?” Blaine mumbles, as Kurt slides back into bed. Their stomachs are full, the kitchen is spotless – the air smells faintly of the lavender counter cleaner Kurt found at Trader Joe’s the other day, and he loves it – and all he wants to do now is spend the rest of the day with his husband. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

“I feel like I should take offense to that,” Kurt replies, tone devoid of any seriousness. “Trying to get rid of me?”

“Just-” Blaine exhales loudly, shakily. “I’m okay on my own. If there’s something you need to be doing.” _I need you, but I can’t tell you that_. 

And years ago, Kurt would’ve believed him. He would’ve given Blaine a kiss and retreated to the kitchen to work on his sketches, or catch up on the newest issues of Vogue, or call Rachel for an update on everything with her, believed that if Blaine was saying he was okay, he was. But Blaine wouldn’t tell him even if he wasn’t going to be okay on his own, and Kurt didn’t realize he needed to ask. He didn’t realize he needed to override the maladaptive mechanisms in Blaine’s brain that convince him every battle is his to fight alone and refuse him the comfort of being able to lean on even his _husband_ , for support. 

But Kurt is older now, and wiser, privy to the reality that just sitting with Blaine when he feels like this, the physicality of that, means more to Blaine than he’ll ever fully understand.

“I’m right where I need to be.” Kurt slides onto his side and wraps himself around Blaine, pulling his back to his chest and kissing the top of Blaine’s shoulder. Instinctively, he reaches for Blaine’s hair, tangling his fingers into the strands at the nape of his neck. He freezes, when his fingers catch against the knots. 

“Shit,” he mutters. Pulling in either direction would hurt Blaine, just judging by the sheer amount of them. 

Blaine’s gone stiff against him, shoulders tensed tightly. He hasn’t said a word. 

“I’m so sorry.” Gingerly, he untangles his hand – not without pulling at Blaine’s hair quite a bit, and oh _god_ Kurt wants to dig a hole and bury himself in it immediately – and wraps that arm around Blaine’s shoulders. 

He searches for the words, but nothing feels quite right, so Kurt just squeezes Blaine tight against him, peppering kisses down his bare skin. Kisses that he hope say every _I’m sorry_ and _I love you_ and _I wish I could make this better for you because I would give up anything to keep you safe forever_ that he knows would fall on deaf ears if he actually vocalized them. 

“Honey?” Kurt ventures, heart hammering in his chest. He doesn’t want to overstep. He doesn’t know where Blaine’s boundaries lie with this, not yet, and he doesn’t want to push too far. But if he’s right on this, it could make a world of difference for Blaine, and he’s willing to take that chance. “How would you feel if I washed your hair?”

“Kurt.” Blaine’s voice is thick and choked, jagged on the last syllable. 

“It might help you feel better, B,” Kurt continues. “You can tell me exactly what to do.” A tiny part of him is hoping Blaine agrees so he can try out his husband’s hair routine. He’s seen Blaine do it hundreds of times, but never felt comfortable asking if he could try. Blaine’s hair has always been a delicate subject. Kurt knows how insecure and uncomfortable he was with it throughout high school, and ever since the debacle at their senior prom – where Blaine wore his hair curly by demand, but ended up sinking afterward, a little further into what Kurt knows now to be his depression with the added stress of Kurt’s graduation coming up – they don’t talk about it unless Blaine brings it up. And he rarely does. 

“It’s so bad, Kurt,” Blaine punctuates the words with a choked sob. “It’s such a mess, you don’t want to-”

“I _do_ want to, honey. I want to take care of you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“You take care of me,” Kurt says, nudging at Blaine’s shoulder until he rolls onto his back and Kurt can meet his eyes. “You took care of me all last month, made me all those protein shakes when I couldn’t keep real food down, held me and let me go on about worst case scenarios for my critique even when you had your own schoolwork to do…you’ve been taking care of me since I was sixteen years old, Blaine, before I even knew how to let you. Let me do this for you. Please.”

“O-okay.”

…

Blaine’s gaze is on the ground as he follows him into the bathroom. Kurt’s comments on switching up the colors of their bath towels and finding some new succulents to put on the sink are met with barely-there nods, and some murmurs that Blaine half-muffles into Kurt’s shoulder. 

God, he can feel his heart breaking.

Blaine doesn’t lift his head until they’re undressed and under the spray, when it finally comes time to drench his hair. 

Kurt sees how hard he’s biting down on his lip, as he takes hold of Blaine’s shoulders and nudges him back, a couple inches further underneath the showerhead. 

“You have to tell me how to do this, B,” he says. “I don’t want to hurt you.” The words are a little more for Blaine’s benefit than his own – Kurt knows it’s just shampoo and conditioner, in that order, but if he can get Blaine _talking_ -

“Shampoo first,” comes Blaine’s response, uncharacteristically quiet. “Then detangle with conditioner so the knots come out easier.” His face crumples after he says the words, eyes squeezing shut. “God, Kurt. This is so pointless. It’s gonna take so long. I don’t even know why-”

“Because I love you. I want to try and help you feel a little better. I don’t care how long it takes.”

Before Blaine has the chance to respond, Kurt reaches for the bottle of his shampoo, squirts some into his hands, and sets to work. 

…

“I love seeing your hair like this.”

Kurt feels like a little kid, stretching out Blaine’s wet curls and watching them shift back into place. He coils the strands around his fingers and forms ringlets of his own, chuckling when he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror. 

Blaine is seated at their sinks, dressed in a navy V-neck and sweats, towel draped around his neck to catch any drippage. Kurt bends to kiss his cheek and looks at him in the mirror. “You look so good right now, honey. So handsome.”

“Kurt…” Blaine shakes his head a bit, a couple water droplets flying and landing on the mirror. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Tell my husband how insanely gorgeous he is?”

“You don’t have to lie to me,” Blaine mumbles. “I know I’m gross.”

“You are _not_ gross.” 

Blaine just stares forward, looking blankly into the mirror. Kurt sighs. It’s so hard to read him when he’s like this. He thinks he knows what Blaine needs, and he tries not to assume the rest, tries not to conflate his own needs with Blaine’s, but sometimes he’s left answerless and empty. He’s trying so hard to keep Blaine from sinking into himself, but the tide is coming in too fast and Kurt isn’t sure Blaine even _wants_ to be dragged away from it anymore.

“Okay, this is the stuff you use, right?” He pulls a white tube of curl cream out from under the sink and holds it up. “And there’s a brush or something…”

“Right side, in the basket at the back of the second drawer.”

“Oh!” Kurt grabs the small black brush and sets it down on the counter next to the cream. “What’s the stuff you’re spraying all the time?”

“Water.” Blaine gives him a small smile. “Just sometimes. If it dries too quickly the product doesn’t work as well.”

“Got it.”

“Sometimes I add some conditioner to it, if my hair’s feeling extra dry, but not always.”

“Oh, do I- do I need to do that?”

Blaine shrugs. “Might help… It’s definitely still a mess.” Kurt’s heart clenches. He sounds so sad. “There’s probably still some left in the spray bottle from last time. You can just add more water.”

“Okay,” Kurt says, when he’s finally arranged everything out in front of him. “What first?”

“I usually just spray it down and brush through it, to make sure all the knots are gone and smooth down the frizz,” Blaine says quietly. There’s a detached air to his tone, a distance. It makes Kurt’s eyes burn. He swallows against the lump quickly forming in his throat and grabs the spray bottle. 

“Is there a special way I’m supposed to brush it? For, like, volume, or something?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“I don’t want to fuck up your hair, B.”

Blaine laughs softly, mirthless. “Don’t think you can do that anymore than I already have.”

“Hey, we got all the knots out.” Kurt forces his voice to stay steady as he bends down to press another kiss against Blaine’s cheekbone. “And you did the best you could, honey.”

“If my best is doing absolutely fucking nothing, sure I did.”

“Blaine-”

Kurt feels the sparks of something red-hot curl deep into his belly, feeling like it’s setting his insides ablaze. _No. Keep calm. He doesn’t need this_. 

“Sorry,” Blaine mumbles. “I’m- sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry.” Kurt tries to keep the emotion out of his words, but everything feels too thick, like he’s talking around cotton. “I just hate how mean you are to yourself. You’re always perfect to me.”

“Yeah,” Blaine mumbles, so low Kurt barely hears it. It stings. There’s a lump in his throat and a pit at the bottom of his stomach and he just wants to cry. Blaine, when he’s like this, quiet and detached, feels like he’s floating up and away, welcoming the void of the abyss as Kurt sprints desperately to catch up with him, trying fiercely to yank him back to Earth. 

_Don’t you ever ever feel like you’re less than, less than perfect_. 

He knows it isn’t that easy, knows those words aren’t quite enough, but they feel like something special. He remembers screaming those lyrics with Blaine on the way to McKinley, vocalizing their courage in promises that their trauma didn’t define them and none of it – not even the ugly, painful aftereffects – were their fault. _If you ever feel like you’re nothing, you are perfect to me_. 

It didn’t fix anything. 

But Kurt remembers, on more days than he’d care to admit, the flinches when a locker door slammed in the distance, the way his entire body seized up as varsity jackets moved past, arming, preparing, hands at the ready to come up and shield his face. 

Post-Karofsky, post-Dalton, and he was still afraid. Over what, he couldn’t figure out. He wanted to stop being scared, but it didn’t work that way. And Blaine loved him. He was perfect, in all his shakiness and panic attacks and nightmares, _perfect_ , to someone. He could still be perfect, even if he was a little broken. He didn’t have to force himself back together, didn’t have to _be_ anything, for Blaine to think he was perfect. 

And some days, that is still all Kurt has to cling to.

Sometimes the weight of the past feels like it’s crushing him, pressing a meaty hand against his face as he struggles, fruitlessly, to move forward. Years of packing feelings tightly away for another day have caught up to him. The day has finally arrived. And sometimes it’s too hard, and it hurts too much, and he feels like it’ll be the thing that destroys him. 

“Kurt?”

“Huh?”

Blaine’s face is turned away from the mirror now, looking steadily up at him. “I love you so much, Kurt. I…” He trails off and shakes his head. “I never want you to feel like you have to take care of me, but it means so much that you want to do it.”

“I _always_ want to do it,” Kurt manages, thick and choked. Blaine reaches up to wrap around his neck and Kurt almost stumbles as he pulls him down and in for a kiss. “I love you, too. I want to help in any way I can.”

“You do.” Blaine takes one of his hands and squeezes it. 

Kurt swallows, squeezing his eyes shut, and straightens. He picks up the brush, trying very hard not to cry, as he reaches for Blaine’s curls once again. 

Blaine instructs him on putting in the curl cream, _a little less than a dime-sized amount, rub it in your hands first and rake it through_ , and Kurt sees the smallest hint of a smile begin to form on his face in the mirror, as he pulls his hands easily through the strands. It took almost a full twenty minutes to get all the knots out, and they did end up with a decently sized ball of shed hair by the end of it – something Kurt rushed to throw away because Blaine’s eyes were filling with tears again, looking at it – but his hair is clean now, and untangled, and the effects speak for themselves. 

It’s the first real smile he’s seen from Blaine in a week. 

When Kurt opens the cabinet again, and pulls out Blaine’s beloved bottle of hair gel and blow dryer, a hand lands on his wrist and prevents him from setting them on the counter. 

“What are you doing?”

“I’m gonna try and style your hair.” Kurt knows things don’t really come to life until Blaine’s added the gel and dried it, gone through all the steps of his styling routine. 

“Why?” Blaine mumbles, shoving weakly at the hair dryer. “No one’s gonna see me. It doesn’t matter how it looks.”

“You’re gonna see you, B,” Kurt says. “And I want you to smile when you do.”

“ _Kurt_ ,” Blaine manages, thick and choked. 

“Let me take care of you, honey.” He presses a kiss against the side of Blaine’s head.

Blaine falls quiet. He gives Kurt a barely-there nod when he asks if the gel is distributed the same way as the cream, gaze fixed on his reflection, eyes still welling with tears. 

At last, when Kurt plugs the blow dryer in and hooks on the diffuser attachment, Blaine bites down on his lip and reaches back, taking Kurt’s hand and squeezing hard. Kurt smiles, bringing them up to his lips and kissing Blaine’s fingers, right where his wedding ring is. 

“Your hair is so gorgeous,” he says, finally, fluffing out the ends. He bends to hook his chin into the crook of Blaine’s neck and move his hands down to his husband’s waist, gazing at him in the mirror. “I know you hated it, back in high school, but I wish more people had gotten to see it in its natural state.” 

“I never wanted anyone to.” Blaine takes a shaky breath. “I always felt like- like it reminded everyone that I wasn’t white.”

Kurt freezes. Of all the things he was expecting to hear, _that_ definitely was not on the list. “What?”

Blaine rarely talks about this part of himself. It’s something Kurt’s always felt shy, intimidated, even, of asking about. Sometimes he’ll hear Blaine talking to his mother in a tongue he doesn’t understand, and some days he comes home to the pungent aromas of vinegar and chicken and garlic and wants to burst into tears at the thought that Blaine feels comfortable enough to share his family’s recipes with Kurt. He’s always had so many questions, wanted to know so much, but he knows that the subject matter is delicate. He’s always wanted to leave the ball in Blaine’s court. If Blaine feels okay to talk about it, that’s up to him. 

“It was the one thing that didn’t let me pass, you know?” Blaine says, sounding once again far too far away for Kurt’s comfort. “The thing that made people do a double take and ask ‘what are you’, when they first met me. They usually- they weren’t very nice about it. And I- it never made me feel confident.”

“Oh, honey…” Kurt drops to his knees and tugs Blaine’s chair around so he faces him, lifting both hands to either side of his face. He strokes his thumbs over Blaine’s stubbly cheeks and leans forward to press their foreheads together. 

Blaine breathes out, long and shaky, reaching for one of Kurt’s hands. “I was afraid to come out, and I didn’t want to give people anymore reason to look at me, I guess. It was middle school and I didn’t know how to style it, yet, so it was always really huge and frizzy. People called me unruly and said it was a mess, and it just- I didn’t want that. It hurt.” A tear rolls slowly down his cheek. “And so I figured, if I just gelled it down, I’d blend in better. No one would tease me…no one would _see_ me, really. No one would see I was different.”

“Blaine-”

Blaine looks at him then, tears on his lashes. “When I met you, one of the first things I saw, aside from how terrible you were at being deceptive-”

“Hey!” Kurt protests, teary too, grin forming across his cheeks. 

“I was so in awe of you, Kurt,” Blaine continues, voice thick. “Here was this boy who had been hurt so badly for not being like everyone else, and yet- he never backed down. Never changed. And you- you gave me the courage to be okay with that. Being different. And I- it took me a little longer, I guess, to get there, but-” 

“But _nothing_ ,” Kurt chokes out, surging forward and pressing his lips against Blaine’s. He closes his eyes, feeling the liquid run down his cheeks. “I see you. And you shine so brightly to me. You always have. Ever since that day in the commons. I saw you, and it felt like I was seeing the sun, for the first time. Like my years of living in the clouds were over, because I could finally see the light.”

“You still think that? Even- even if I’ve been a complete mess, for the past few weeks?”

“ _Blaine_. Of course I do.” 

“You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Blaine says. “Thank you. For today, and every day this week, and for always making me feel so loved and cared for.”

“I hate when you’re hurting.” Kurt reaches to cup Blaine’s cheek again, stroking the pad of his thumb across Blaine’s skin. “I want to help, and I know I’m not always able to, but…”

“You’re here.” Blaine laughs wetly. “You haven’t left me yet. That’s enough.”

It isn’t, and Kurt wants to be more, _needs_ , on some days, to be more, but doesn’t argue. All he wants to do right now is crawl back in bed and hold Blaine close, and let the sound of his husband’s heartbeat lull him to sleep. “Never saying goodbye to you. I said forever, and I meant that.”

Blaine sniffles against him, and Kurt collects him in a hug, hands – finally – running easily through his curls, and closes his eyes, breathing out heavily.

Tomorrow is a new day. It might be another bad one, might not cap off the awful few weeks Blaine has had. Kurt doesn’t know.

All he knows is he’ll be there.


End file.
